A groundbreaking chronicle of spiritual search, originally published in Rolling Stone magazine, April 1977.

III. FIRST ENCOUNTERS

I left New York on March 22nd, 1976, on an overnight flight packed with Jewish tour groups. Here and there I saw religious men in beards and yarmulkes (skullcaps). At dawn they began getting up to form a minyan (ten-man quorum) for morning prayer. The Israeli flight attendants gave them dirty looks for blocking the aisles.

We arrived around noon. I wandered outside, past clumps of armed teenage soldiers, looking for Mike. I was beginning to wonder if we had missed each other when a tall, thin boy wearing a yarmulke approached me.

"Are you Ellen?"

Chaim was a student at my brother's yeshiva; he had come to meet me because Mike had a bad cold. He explained that we would stop first at Rabbi and Rebbetzin Weinberg's, where I would leave my bags, then go to find Mike. We took a cab into Jerusalem, talking sketchily about the experiences that had brought each of us here, and caught the bus for Kiryat Zanz, a religious neighborhood nestled in a rocky hillside. In contrast to the gorgeous landscape, the rows of identical low apartment buildings were dreary, housing project modern. Block 5 Building 2 housed the Weinbergs and their nine children.

The rebbetzin invited us into an apartment that conveyed a sense of busy warmth. It was crammed with books and artifacts – menorahs, vases of flowers, bright fabrics, pictures of wise men, a colored-glass chandelier.

Dinah Weinberg is a striking woman. Slim, fair, blue eyed, in her late 30s, she looks like a picture-postcard of the ideal Jewish matriarch – one part strength and competence, one part motherliness, one part a modest, almost austere beauty accentuated by the kerchief that covers her head. (When an Orthodox woman marries, her hair becomes private, seen only by her husband.) I immediately craved her approval without quite knowing why. We sat in the kitchen chatting about my brother while children wandered in and out. I mentioned that I wanted to find out more about women's role in Judaism.

"Good!" the rebbetzin said. "People misunderstand it."

"I don't want to devote all my time to children," I said. "I want to write."

"Suppose I don't want children," I began, "or anyway no more than one or two..."

Mrs. Weinberg's reply threw me. "If someone gave you money, would you turn it down?"

"I don't get the comparison." Money buys freedom; children take it away: the instant I had the thought it seemed unbearably crass.

"Children are a blessing," said the rebbetzin firmly. The conversation had taken a depressing turn. I could no more imagine having nine children than contemplate climbing Mt. Everest.

"I don't want to devote all my time to children," I said. "I want to write."

"You can do both. A Jewish woman shouldn't spend all her time with her children. We can do much more."

"If I had a bunch of kids I wouldn't have any time and energy to spare."

"The Almighty wants us to use our talents. He wouldn't punish you by not letting you write. You'd find the time."

Well, maybe so. I wasted so much time, after all. No doubt a disciplined person could raise half a dozen kids in the time I spent day-dreaming, reading junk, sleeping late. But I would never be that person; I knew my limitations. Or was that just an excuse for laziness?

The rebbetzin kissed me goodbye, and Chaim and I took a bus to the walled Old City. The Jewish Quarter, which had been largely destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948, was still being rebuilt; the smell of dust and the sound of drilling were pervasive. Mike emerged from his dorm looking pale and tired from his cold. We walked over to Yeshivat Aish HaTorah, which was on a side street called Misgav Ladach tucked beside a huge construction site. To the northeast the yeshiva overlooked some of the most spectacular sights in Jerusalem – the Mount of Olives, the Valley of Kidron and the golden Dome of the Rock. It was a short walk from the Western Wall ("Wailing Wall"), the sacred remnant of King Solomon's Temple.

We found the rabbi in his office. Like his wife, Noach Weinberg has a compelling presence. He is in his mid-40s, but with his white beard, black suit and air of authority he seems older. He regarded me with a friendly smile and eyes that suggested he had my number but liked me anyway. I thought he looked like God the Father in His more jovial aspect. After we had been introduced he told Mike that a kid who had been staying at the yeshiva was about to leave.

"You know why they leave?" he said to me. "They leave because they're scared they'll like it." He shook his head. "Insanity! Do you how Jews define sin? Sin is temporary insanity."

For instance, he explained, he had a bad habit of wasting time; who in his right mind would want to waste time?

It was a commandment to be happy; unhappiness in effect denied God's love, dismissed His gifts.

For the first few days I stayed with one of Mike's teachers, Shimon Haskel, and his wife Chaya. I began to unwind from my trip and settle in. I was feeling close to Mike, and we talked more openly than ever before about our family, our childhoods, our fears and hang-ups. Mike told me that I seemed so confident he had always been afraid of me: I told him that I'd felt he was Mr. Cool, secretly putting me down. "But now," said Mike, "I'm not afraid of you anymore." I was pleased with the change in him. He was not only more confident but more willing to face his emotional problems – the split between intellect and feeling, the distance from other people, the lack of joy. He was obliged to face them, for they were also religious problems. It was a commandment to be happy; unhappiness in effect denied God's love, dismissed His gifts.

Mike was also absorbed in his work. He found the yeshiva completely different from all the schools he had hated. Both teachers and students were deeply involved in learning; they had no doubt that what they were doing was important. Universities, Mike felt, were dead; Aish HaTorah was alive. For several hours every morning he studied Gemara (the voluminous rabbinical commentaries on the Mishna; Mishna and Gemara together constitute the Talmud). In the afternoon and evening he studied Rambam (Maimonides). Somehow he found the time to talk with new people, listening to their problems, answering questions, and out of this had come another project: he was writing a group of papers arguing various proofs of God's existence and the Torah's divinity. His persuasiveness and intellectual skills had made him something of a star at the yeshiva.

Aish HaTorah is a yeshiva for ba'al teshuvas – delinquent Jews who have "returned." It is the fourth such yeshiva that Noach Weinberg has started in the past decade. Recently, others have picked up on Reb Noach's vision and started their own yeshivas in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

In America, the most conspicuous Jewish evangelizers of Jews have been Hassidim. Hassidism, a tendency within Judaism that stresses joy, prayer and mystical experience, began in the last century as a revolt by poor and uneducated Jews against the elitist intellectualism of the yeshivas of Eastern Europe, particularly Lithuania. The ba'al teshuva yeshiva movement in Israel comes from the latter tradition, that of the misnagdim – rationalist opponents of Hassidism – who emphasize learning Torah as the highest value and chief means of approaching God. A yeshiva like Aish HaTorah operates on the premise that the best weapon against unbelief is rational argument. It follows that the crucial first step is to get people to listen. Boys are urged to come for a day, an hour a meal, a bed. (No one has to pay unless he can afford to; the school is supported mostly by contributions.) A beginner's program runs for three months and then repeats; a student can start at any point. Those who stay can advance as fast as their ability allows to study of the Talmud and biblical commentaries.

There was a major hitch in my plan to replicate Mike's experience: I could not go to Aish HaTorah. Orthodox education is sexually segregated, and opportunities for women are limited. Learning is a religious obligation only for men; among tradition-minded Jews the issue of whether women should study Torah and Talmud, and if so how much, is controversial. None of the women's schools in Jerusalem offers a comprehensive intellectual and religious experience like Aish HaTorah's. Nor do they cater to transients. [Thankfully, this is no longer the case. Ed. Note] Still, I decided to check out a couple of schools and visit a student Mike knew.

Lorie Bernstein was 19 and the product of a rich Long island suburb; her divorced parents owned clothing stores. Mike had first met her at the airport on his way back from New York. During the cab ride into Jerusalem she had told him that she had been a Hassid for a while but had reverted to existentialism; Mike had urged her to give Judaism another try. Since then she had become a fervent ba'al teshuva. When I introduced myself she hugged me excitedly. She was small and bouncy, with dark hair tucked in a bun, she wore a long-sleeved blouse, a long skirt and gold-rimmed, blue-tinted glasses.

I had found Lorie just as she was about to do some errands in Mea Shearim, an old, poor, fanatically pious community noted for its anti-Zionists (they believe there cannot he a legitimate Jewish state until the coming of the Messiah), its Hassids in medieval caftans, and its signs demanding that female tourists conform to Torah standards of modest dress. We walked there together. Lorie stopped several times to give coins to beggars, all the while keeping up a passionate monologue.

"God gives us so much, you just have to do something back. I love doing mitzvot and helping people. A few agurot mean nothing to you, but you're giving someone food, making him happy. This religion is so beautiful!" She was bubbly, breathless; energy rolled off her in waves. "Whether there's a God or not, the Torah helps you live up to your potential it's like tripping – you get an awareness of everything you do. I really have to think about food now – what's milk, what's meat, my mother-love side and beast side? Every day I have to thank God for all kinds of things. Thank God I'm awake. (Think of all the people who aren't awake.) Thank God for commanding me to wash. Whenever I wash I'm aware of my hands and how wonderful they are. Thank God for clothing the naked. How many people think every day about how they have clothes and other people don't? There's even a prayer for the bathroom – thank God for my ducts and orifices, that they're working properly."

I asked her how she felt about Judaism's view of women.

"I'm dying to get married and have children. Right now I'm doing teshuva, repentance. What could possibly be more important than having children?"

I mumbled something about wanting to write.

"Writing!" Lorie said scornfully. "I used to write, I used it to get rid of energy. What's writing compared to creating a human being, a soul?"

"It happens to be what I want to do."

"What you want! I used to be that way. The most important thing was to be authentic – to do what I really wanted to do, even if I hurt someone. My ideal was Meursault in The Stranger. Life was meaningless so why pretend it wasn't? Anyway," she said, "most things you think you want to do you don't really want to do. Other people want you to do them. The only thing I really miss is getting high. I love getting high – I love it! If there was one thing that could get me off religion it would be that."

On the other side of the street – we were now in Mea Shearim – two touristy looking girls passed by, transgressing the modesty laws by wearing jeans. "If I weren't with you," Lorie said, "I'd go over and yell at them."

"I don't think it does much good to yell at people," I said, feeling resentful about the anti-writing remarks.

"You can't tell," said Lorie. "Sometimes one little thing can change you around. What got me to join the Hassidim was that someone told me how low their divorce rate was. If I just explained about modesty – why it's not good to wear pants..." She stopped. "I'm being too heavy, aren't I? I'm sorry. I get carried away when I meet a new person."

We walked past stalls selling fruits and vegetables, down a narrow, cobbled back street, to visit a friend of Lorie's who might help place some students with families for Shabbos. Leah, a vivacious, middle-aged Hassidic housewife, insisted on serving us vegetable soup, bread and cream cheese. She supervised the washing ritual, showing me how to pour from the two-handled cup, how to cup my hands, making me do it over until I got it exactly right, while Lorie bounced up and down, protesting, "Leah! You'll discourage her! You've got to start out easy!"

I began hanging around Lorie's school, sitting in on classes – which mostly centered on Hebrew texts and made me feel as if I'd stumbled into the middle of a foreign-language movie with inadequate subtitles – and talking with Lorie and her friends. There was Frieda from Brooklyn, strong, blunt, a scrapper, a woman with a vision: she intended to start a ba'al teshuva organization in the States. There was Cindy who had identified with black people so intensely that she still spoke with a trace of a pseudo-Southern accent, who had decided to convert to Christianity and had joined a black church, but then – boruch Hashem! – praise God! – had realized where she belonged. There was Sarah, who had been born Protestant in Chicago and had converted after investigating every philosophy there was and deciding that only Judaism made sense.

But at the psychological center of my life in Jerusalem were the rabbi and the rebbetzin. Noach Weinberg, the youngest son of a Hassid, grew up on New York's Lower East Side; Dinah came from Long Island. They met and married in the late Fifties, and emigrated to Israel in 1961. Reb Noach was determined to do something to reverse the Jewish drift away from Torah. For six years he studied with his goal in mind and in 1967 he started his first yeshiva. Aish HaTorah has been going since 1973. Reb Noach runs the school, teaches, and makes periodic fundraising trips to the States. The rebbetzin mothers their children, runs their household, studies, teaches, does charity work and acts as counselor and friend to the yeshiva students and other young people who seek her out. During Aish HaTorah's first year she was also its chief administrator.

On Monday nights a group of women met at Rebbetzin Weinberg's for her class on the 613 mitzvot. The rebbetzin was currently discussing the mitzva to do good. Doing good, in Jewish terms, involves a constant struggle between the two sides of our nature: the yeitzer tov (good inclination), which arises from the soul and desires to serve God, and the yeitzer hara (evil inclination), which stems from the body and craves unlimited material, sexual and egotistical satisfactions.

"What's the difference between a war against people and the war against the yeitzer hara?" the rebbetzin asked. "A people war has an end – there's no end to the yeitzer hara war. A people war doesn't go on 24 hours a day. In a people war, you win something limited. If you win the yeitzer hara war, you have everything. And if you lose..."

It was an incongruous image for a Jewish mother of nine but I couldn't help thinking of Joan of Arc.

"You have to develop a strategy. For instance, suppose you know that when you meet a certain person you're going to talk lashon hara."

Lashon hara, slander, is an important sin, the subject of a formidable body of law. It is forbidden to say anything disparaging about someone – whether or not it is true – or to say anything that could be construed as disparaging, or to listen to such talk. It is even forbidden to praise someone in front of an enemy who might be tempted to argue. The Haskels had a sign in their kitchen that said, "Is that lashon hara?"

"You should try to avoid the person," said the rebbetzin. "But if you can't, then you should think, how can I avoid the bad conversation? Is there some other way I can make her feel good?"

"Why not take the direct approach," one of the women asked, "and just say, 'Let's not talk lashon hara'?"

"Not everyone can take that," said the rebbetzin. "You might just put her on the defensive."

To be good, Mrs. Weinberg summed up, was to emulate the Almighty, to become as perfect an image of Him as possible. To be Infinitely patient, to return insult with kindness – and without self-congratulation. How to do this? "Know the 613 mitzvot. There is no other way."

Secular enlightenment was the brew that provoketh the desire but taketh away the performance. We still craved perfection... but we had no law to guide or reassure us.

It occurred to me that if Talmudic logic had made Mike realize how Jewish his thinking was, Jewish ethics made me realize how Jewish my feelings were. I was beginning to understand Jewish guilt. Unlike Christian guilt, which assumed one's inherent depravity, it came from the idea that one could and should attain perfection. Jews who took their religion seriously had no need to feel guilty. They knew the 613 mitzvot were the way, and if they backslid they could catch themselves and carry on. For Jews like me it was different; secular enlightenment was the brew that provoketh the desire but taketh away the performance. We still craved perfection, and so we pursued utopian politics, utopian sex, utopian innocence. But we had no law to guide or reassure us. With the law, one could have patience with one's shortcomings. Without it, if we were not there we were nowhere at all "To live outside the law you must be honest" – Bob Dylan, a Jew, said that.

* * *

Since the Haskels had three little children and another guest in their crowded apartment, I moved in with Chaya's stepsister, Abby Ginsberg, and her roommate, Sharon Weitz. They shared a large apartment – inherited from Abby's parents, who had gone back to the States – on Shimoni Street in Rasco, an attractive residential neighborhood that was not predominantly religious. Like the Haskels they were from the Midwest. Abby was studying at Hebrew University, Sharon at a seminary. Both women were more religious than their families.

I felt immediately comfortable with Sharon and Abby, in part because their sense of female identity did not seem radically different from my own. They had not grown up isolated from secular life. They had gone to public high school, dated, worn pants; they had not married at 18; they were serious about learning; the man Abby was seeing pitched in with the cooking and played blues on his guitar. Unlike Lorie, they were not reacting against their past; because their religious commitment had deepened gradually rather than come through sudden conversion, they had none of the ba'al teshuva's dogmatic intensity.

"Of course I feel a conflict between Judaism and feminism," Sharon said. "It's harder to accept if you've been exposed to Western ideas than if you grew up in Mea Shearim. But if you're committed to Judaism, other principles have to adjust. To me a Jewish life offers so many satisfactions..." She smiled and shrugged. Intellectually she knew where she stood, but emotionally she was still struggling. "The thing I really care about," said Abby "is being able to learn. If I thought the halacha wouldn't allow me to learn – then I might have a problem."

Abby was ebullient; Sharon had a quieter warmth. They were ten years younger than I, but I often felt as if our ages were reversed. They projected a balance, an un-self-conscious maturity symbolized for me by the way they cooperated in maintaining their cheerful apartment. The Shimoni Street place was just an ordinary middle-class apartment, conventionally furnished by the absent parents, serving as a way station for two young, transient students. But Abby and Sharon made it feel like home. They were, for one thing, enthusiastic cooks. Almost every afternoon I would come back to find them in the kitchen discussing recipes; since Abby was experimenting with vegetarianism they were always trying new concoctions – cheese-and-spinach souffles, vegetable pies, fruit salads.

Often Abby's friend, Joshua, would be there too. He was leaving for the States in a few weeks, right after Passover; in the meantime he and Abby were trying to figure our how they felt about each other. Orthodox Jews do not play sexual games: a man and a woman are either compatible or they aren't, and if they decide they are they get married. So Josh was at Shimoni Street several nights a week. He and Abby would study and argue points of halacha, and then we would all help with the dinner and eat together, talking and joking about the events of the day, what this or that teacher said, my latest argument with Lorie. I would go to bed and read, or write in my notebook, and when I padded to the kitchen or the bathroom at 2 or 3 a.m. I would, as often as not, hear the pacific murmur of one of Josh and Abby's marathon conversations.

* * *

IV. TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES

The first commandment," said Reb Noach, "is to know there is a God." We were resuming a conversation we had started a few days earlier. "The disease of Western thought," he had said then, "is: 'There is no absolute truth.' But it's intuitively obvious that either something is true or it isn't. Listen – 'There is no absolute truth.' 'Are you sure?' 'Yes.' 'Are you absolutely sure?" I could afford to laugh. I believed something was true or it wasn't; I just didn't think we could know for sure which was which. "They call us fanatics. But a fanatic is someone who won't listen to reason. I say, let's reason together. Let's find a premise on which we can both agree and reason from there. The purpose of reason," he had concluded, "is to get someone to the point where his intuition will say, 'Yes, you're right.'"

"Know there is a God," Reb Noach repeated. "Not 'have faith.' Understand! Reason! But reason can only tell you what you already know. It's a servant, like your hand." He held his hand out. "Hand! Come to my nose!" The hand did not move. "What's this? Revolution? Don't be silly! No, your hand acts on what you really want, not on what you say you want. Reason will tell you what you really know – what are your perceptions. Not other people's, not society's."

For the next hour or so, Reb Noach tried to persuade my intuition. If my father on his deathbed asked me to say a mourner's prayer for him, would I? Of course. If he asked me to say a bunch of nonsense syllables, would I? Probably not. Why not? What's the difference? Well, I think religious ritual is meaningful, worthy of respect; that doesn't mean it represents absolute truth. If someone ran in front of my car and I hit him, wouldn't I feel guilty, even if I couldn't possibly have stopped in time? Yes, I would. What did that tell me? "Even if it's not technically my fault, someone has suffered because of me. It's irrational, but I'd think, 'If I'd just done something different – taken the bus, stayed home...'"

"The reason you would feel guilty," Reb Noach said, "is that it really would be your fault. If you hadn't done something wrong, God wouldn't have chosen you as the instrument of someone's death."

I appreciated Reb Noach's technique. I realized that I had on occasion, used it myself. (Don't you and your husband both work? Suppose you lived with your sister, and you both worked, and she wanted you to cook dinner every night because she was tired – would you do it? Why not? Well, then, what's different about doing it for a man?) But my intuition was unconvinced. I still couldn't see the ultimate Reality as a being who cared, willed, intervened in our lives and – might as well bring it up – decreed separate functions for men and women.

"You don't think men and women are basically different?"

"Basically, no," I said. "Basically, I think we're all human beings."

"One of the craziest ideas in this crazy modern world," said Reb Noach, "is that men and women are the same. Men and women are two different species!"

I insisted that whatever the differences – and who could tell at this point which were inherent, which imposed by a patriarchal culture? – they did not require women to devote themselves to as many babies as chose to make their appearance. Reb Noach shook his head.

"Children are the greatest pleasure," he said, "but people today are so decadent they prefer their material comforts to children."

"It's not just material comfort!" I protested. "People have a right to some freedom – some time for themselves..."

"Decadence, Ellen. I'd have 50 children, a hundred. Every child is a lesson in love!"

"My parents aren't decadent! They've worked hard to bring up three children – to educate us all..."

I wasn't sure why I was crying – except that if my middle-class family-centered parents could by any standard be accused of decadent behavior, then I was completely hopeless. My loss of control took me by surprise. I suppose it was my first overt symptom of culture shock.

How long was it since I'd landed at the airport – eight days? Nine? It felt much longer. My sense of time had changed, along with my perspective. I was, in crucial ways, an outsider – a reporter, at that – in a strange culture. Yet because I was Jewish, I was also family. Whatever anyone might think of me, whether I was religious or not, so long as I was living in the Orthodox community I was on some basic level accepted as part of it. And so I began, almost imperceptibly at first, to identify with that community and feel weirdly estranged from the secular world. I found myself thinking of non-religious people as "they." When I had an errand in downtown Jerusalem I felt assaulted by its frenetic, noisy, garish urbanness, by the crowds of Israelis who milled along Jaffa Road without a care for the subtleties of Jewish law.

Even the ever-present political tension began to seem part of that other world. A deep belief that God controls events tends to cool political fervor, and only a minority of Orthodox Israelis fit the stereotype of the militant religious nationalist; Mike and his friends were critical of the rabbinical establishment for what they saw as its readiness to bend the Torah to the demands of the state. I had arrived in Israel at a volatile time: Palestinian students had been demonstrating in the Old City; Israeli Arabs were protesting the expropriation of Arab land in the Galilee. I read about it all in the Jerusalem Post, feeling, absurdly, that Israeli politics had been much more vivid to me when I was in New York.

A religious universe enveloped me. I was surrounded by people who believed and, more important, lived that belief every minute. Conversation among Orthodox Jews never strays far from questions of ethics, points of law, one's religious activities; even small talk is inescapably religious: "I'm feeling better, boruch Hashem!"; "I ran into so-and-so on Shabbos"; "She's going to have a milchig [dairy] wedding." Orthodox life has its own special rhythm. There is the daily rhythm of prayer and the weekly rhythm of preparations for Shabbos: rushing to clean and cook before Friday sundown, when all work must be suspended; setting lights to go on and off automatically; taking turns showering, hoping the hot water won't run out; dressing up; lighting the Sabbath candles. There is Shabbos itself: making Kiddush (blessing and sharing wine); washing and breaking bread and sitting down to the traditional European-Jewish Friday night chicken dinner; the men going off to shul Saturday morning, coming home to a meal of cholent, a stew that is made before Shabbos and left simmering on the stove; studying, walking, visiting or napping in the afternoon; the light supper and finally the havdalah ("division") ceremony with which Shabbos ends.

Living with Orthodox Jews was like being straight at a party where everyone else is stoned; after a while, out of sheer social necessity, you find yourself getting a contact high.

Although the process was less dramatic, my immersion in Jewish life was having a far more potent effect on me than my confrontation with Jewish ideas. I could argue with ideas, but I could not, without being an abrasive nuisance, refuse to adapt, in important respects, to the customs of my hosts. On the most superficial level this meant not washing Abby and Sharon's dairy dishes in the meat sink, but it also meant shifting mental gears to participate in conversations that took a religious outlook for granted. Living with Orthodox Jews was like being straight at a party where everyone else is stoned; after a while, out of sheer social necessity, you find yourself getting a contact high.

There was, for instance, the afternoon I spent talking with Lorie and Frieda. Frieda had recruited Lorie for her ba'al teshuva organization; they were planning to go back to New York in July to get the project moving. I started giving advice. If they wanted young, educated women to take Judaism seriously, I argued, their organization would have to engage women's minds the way Aish HaTorah had engaged Mike's. That meant ... and then I heard myself: I was telling them how to seduce me.

I had always thought of Orthodox Judaism as a refuge for compulsives: not only did its ubiquitous requirements and prohibitions seem to preclude spontaneity, but since the halacha, like any body of law that applies basic principles to specific situations, was open to interpretation, it provided endless opportunities for what outsiders would call hairsplitting. For example, it's Shabbos and Sharon and Abby have a problem: they have, as usual, left a kettle of boiling water on a burner they lit Friday afternoon, and now the flame has gone out. Is it permitted to switch the kettle to another lit burner? If the water has cooled off, heating it up again would violate the rule against cooking on Shabbos. If it's still hot, moving it should be okay. But it must have cooled off slightly. How hot does it have to be? Under the kettle, covering both burners, is a metal sheet, there as a reminder not to turn the flames up or down; does this make both flames one fire, which would mean that switching the kettle is allowed in any case? Abby, Sharon and Josh debated this issue for half an hour – it remained unresolved, and they did not move the kettle.

I understood now that to call this sort of behavior compulsive was to assume that religious observance was a distraction from life, while for believers it was the whole point; secular concerns were the distraction. If doing mitzvot – all of them, not just those you understood or liked – was the way to serve God, to connect with Reality, then it was crucial to do them exactly right. For the people around me Torah was not a straitjacket but a discipline, shaping and focusing their energies toward the only meaningful end. It was an arduous discipline, but one that was no more inherently compulsive than my own search for the precise adjective, or the care with which feminists analyzed the minutiae of sexual relationships.

And what was so sacred, anyway, about the arcane customs of my hyperurban, freelance existence? For all that I was so attached to it, I had to admit that it was, in the context of human history, more than a little strange. Sociologists liked to talk about how rootless and mobile Americans were, but most Americans at least had families. Despite my reluctance to assume the burdens of motherhood in a sexist society, it disturbed me to think that I would very likely never have children: I felt that child rearing, like working and loving, was one of the activities that defined humanness. Even my work – my excuse for so much of what I did or didn't do – sometimes struck me as ridiculous. What was the point of sitting home scratching symbols on paper, adding my babblings to a world already overloaded with information? And what of my belief in the supreme importance of connecting with Reality? Orthodox Jews acted on their version of that belief; did I? Well, there was my therapy. It occupied all of 45 minutes of my week – less time than it took me (speaking of compulsive rituals) to read the Sunday Times. Did I really have my priorities straight?

If my traumatic talk with Mike had shocked me into realizing that Judaism was a plausible intellectual system, living in Jerusalem was making me realize that Judaism was a plausible way of life. And that realization slid relentlessly into the next: that it was plausible even for me. My rapport with Abby and Sharon weakened my defenses against this frightening idea. I experienced Shimoni Street as a kind of halfway house. Much as I admired the rebbetzin, she was too unlike me to be a model. Lorie, in an entirely different way, was also from another world. But Abby and Sharon had the psychology of modern intellectual women. If they found Orthodox life exalting and full of purpose – if they had been exposed to the freedoms I had, yet did not feel deprived – perhaps I did not need those freedoms as much as I thought.

Yet even as I was drawn into the Orthodox subculture, I also resisted it. My resistance took an embarrassing form, it surfaced as a spoiled brat yelling, "I won't!" If I had come to Israel to experience Judaism, it made sense for me to try to observe Jewish law. I had resolved, for instance, to eat only kosher food during my stay. For a month this would scarcely be a major deprivation; I had stuck to reducing diets that required much more discipline. Yet I found that I couldn't keep away from the junk-food stands on Jaffa Road; I stuffed myself with suspect brands of chocolate; under my modest dresses I was puffing out at a disquieting rate. Then there was the synagogue issue. Though communal prayer was not required of women, I felt that I should, at least once, attend services at an Orthodox shul. But I was afraid to face what I saw as the total humiliation of sitting upstairs in the women's section. Some journalist, I mocked myself. Lucky no one ever sent you to cover a war.

I began to realize that I was depressed. The weather, still wintry and raw, depressed me. The city itself depressed me, which was a surprise. On my first trip to Israel I had reacted very differently. I was not thinking about religion then; I was preoccupied with politics, war history, the tragic clash of nationalism. But I had been awed by the radiance of Jerusalem. Perhaps it was just the combination of natural beauty and antiquity, but whatever holiness was, the city breathed it. Standing before the massive stones of the Western Wall, submerged in a crowd of people praying, I had felt the pain and ecstasy of millions of pilgrims course through me.

A friend had arranged for several members of our group to have Friday night dinner with a religious family, and all evening I felt the way I had at the Wall. Everything had a preternatural clarity and significance. When our host said the blessings over the bread and wine, I marveled that I had been so obtuse as not to see. Blessing one's food – appreciating the miracle of food – what could be more fitting? And the whole idea of the Sabbath, one day a week when you were forbidden ordinary distractions and had to be alone with yourself and Reality ... I imagined myself back in New York City, spending a Saturday without writing, eating in a restaurant, taking the subway; a whole day with the phone off the hook and the record player silent. A fantasy, of course, I could never live that way, didn't even want to, and yet I felt a pang: isn't this what it's all about, the acid peace, the connection you say you want, getting rid of all the noise?

Now, though I remembered those feelings, I couldn't recreate them. I went to the Wall, saw weathered stone spattered with pigeon droppings, left quickly because of the cold wind. And Shabbos, with all its restrictions, was simply oppressive, like a tight girdle. "Last time," said Mike, "you could be open to it because you weren't seriously thinking about it as a possibility."

It was during Shabbos, the second since I'd arrived, that my depression hit full force. A friend of Mike's had invited us for the weekend. He and his wife were warmly hospitable and I struggled guiltily against my gloom. I felt suffocated by domesticity, by the children calling for mommy, the men leaving for shul and the women staying home, the men sitting at the table and the women carting away the dishes. I wanted to tear off my itchy, constricting stockings. I wanted to write in my notebook, turn on lights, eat without going through half an hour of ritual first.

The next day I went to El Al to confirm my return reservation. The flight I was booked on left April 22nd, but my excursion ticket was good for two extra weeks if I wanted them and I figured it was time to decide. I was always superstitious about switching flights; now, looking over the timetable, I felt irrationally certain that if I changed my plans I would end up staying in Israel. Something would trap me here. When Lorie first came to Jerusalem she had dreamed she was in prison, supervised by a mean lady; she had wanted to get out, but by the time they were ready to let her go, a month later, she loved it and wanted to stay. On the strength of that dream Lorie had decided to stay a month and, sure enough she was still here... This is ridiculous, I lectured myself. If you want to go you'll go; if you want to stay you'll stay; and if God is really controlling your life it's useless to second-guess Him. I debated staying at least a few extra days, but that would mean going through another Shabbos. I decided to stick with my original flight.

As soon as I left the office, a new wave of paranoia hit: God would punish me for my rotten attitude toward Shabbos. My plane would crash or be attacked by terrorists. Mida k'neged mida – measure for measure. Later that day, I realized I couldn't leave on April 22nd: it was the last day of Passover, and I had been invited to Reb Noach's. The prospect of having to change my reservation after all solidified my conviction that I would never make it back to the States. I had received a sign. There were no coincidences.

When I told Mike about my scheduling mix-up, he looked as if I'd punched him in the jaw. "You're leaving early," he said. "I thought you had six weeks."

"I planned on staying a month. I'm just doing what I was going to do all along."

"It's not just that. You want to leave because you're depressed. You're reacting exactly the same way I did."

My gut contracted.

"Mike, I'm not you. We may be alike in a lot of ways, but we're two different people." Under the panic I had to remember that, hold on to that. "If I want to go home I'm going home, and I'm not going to feel guilty about it."

"But you can't postpone these questions..." He shook his head. "When you first came, you were really relating to what was going on. Now I feel as if you've withdrawn."

* * *

Do you really have to go back?" the rebbetzin asked. I had come over for another talk with Reb Noach.

"Theoretically," I said, "I could throw over my entire life and stay. But I don't want to."

"Do you think it's important to find out if there's a God?"

"Well..." Leave me alone! Get off my back!

"If there is, and we don't find out, are we culpable?"

I don't have to listen to this! It's brainwashing, that's what it is!

"I can find out in New York," I said.

"If I offered you a $200,000 business deal," Reb Noach put in, "you wouldn't say, 'I can make the same deal in America.' You'd say, 'Let's talk.'"

"I have a whole life to get back to," I insisted. "I like my life."

"Then you won't really try to find out," said the rebbetzin.

"I didn't say that."

"Well, will you?"

"I don't know," I said, feeling miserable.

The opposite of pleasure is comfort. Pleasure involves pain. Decadence is opting for comfort.

I was not in the best mood to face Reb Noach. During our talks, he had been going through the proofs of God one by one. His theme this time was: "A design must have a designer." I had by now had this argument with several people. I still didn't buy it. Finally, Reb Noach said, "Ellen, think for a minute: is there a reason you don't want to believe the proofs?"

"Look at it objectively! If you accept one proof it doesn't mean changing your whole world view."

"But I don't accept it. I don't see that the order in the universe has to be created by a personal God."

"There seems to be a wall here," said Reb Noach. "I don't want to pursue this unless you want to."

He started on another tack. "Why was the world created. For our pleasure. What is the one thing we are capable of doing? Seeking pleasure. So how can we go wrong? Insanity! Tell me – what's the opposite of pleasure?"

"Pain." I said.

"No! No! The opposite of pleasure is comfort. Pleasure involves pain. Decadence is opting for comfort. For example, what's more important, wisdom or money? Ask most people, they'll say 'wisdom.' 'Okay, stay here six months and I'll give you wisdom.' 'I can't – I have a job, a girlfriend, I'm supposed to take a vacation in the Greek islands.' 'Stay six months and I'll give you $20,000.' 'Fine!' 'What about your job, your girlfriend?' 'They'll wait.'

"The soul wants wisdom; the body wants money. The soul wants pleasure; the body wants comfort. And what's the highest pleasure? The aim of the soul? God, Ellen. That's real happiness – ecstasy, Ellen! Find out what you're living for! Take the pain – pleasure only comes with a lot of pain. I'm your friend – I'm with you. Give up your life of striving for success, for identity, your name up there..."

Unfair! "Do you really think I write just to get my name in print?"

"I think you do it to have an identity. To be 'a writer.'"

"I do like having that. But would you believe that I write mainly because I enjoy it, and I'm good at it, and" – defiantly – "I think it's useful work!"

"Shakespeare's okay," said Reb Noach, "but unless you know the real meaning of life, you're a zombie, a walking dead man. Find out what you're living for, Ellen. Clarity or death!"

About the Author

Visitor Comments: 8

(8)
anonymous,
May 11, 2007 8:45 AM

These articles are beautiful and I extend much credit to Reb Noach and his wife. My only concern with these articles is that I did not feel that Ellen was given adequate answers addressing her feminity. There is so much beauty and spirituality fulfilled through the role of a Jewish woman and I did not feel that was given across to her. In a way, I feel, that she felt that she had to sacrifice herself as a woman to recognize the truth. While, the Jewish idea of being a woman is very different from hers, it does mean subjugation and subserviance as so many people think. I am an orthodox Jewish woman and I could not be prouder of that role. I feel bad for Jewish woman who do not realize the gift they have and try so hard to be like the men when we have so much to offer as Jewish women.

(7)
Chana,
May 9, 2007 2:24 PM

wow!

wow, this article is absolutely fascinating!!! I am so happy that you posted it. Can't wait to read the rest next week!

(6)
Andy,
May 8, 2007 9:36 AM

experimenting and /or regularly using drugs was normal exp during that time period in the USA

Even the establishment types such as Clinton,GW Bush, Obamma etc all readily admit to having at least experimented with drugs during that period. The desire to expand and heighten consciousness [and escaping pain as the less admirable more common motive] without the hard work on oneself was irresistible. Of course truly positive insights gleaned rarely if ever became intergrated within the individuals permanent conscioussness. In some ways the gift of raised consciousness at the parting of the sea and again at Sinai come to mind. That was a much more intense experience I'd guess than any trip and the raised consciousness much higher "even the lowliest handmaiden there achieved greater understanding then the future prophets."I belive Rabbi Akiva Tatz explained that it was a gift that did not last. They were given it free and then had to work and build themselves to earn it.I think he explains that we can have that opportunity [a taste as gift and then opportunity to go to work to earn it] in micro every Passover.

(5)
Daniela,
May 7, 2007 5:49 PM

wow

I can't wait for the next installment to see how she dealt with the cult-like pressure to not leave. I'm not sure they do that anymore - or do they ? I would have left on the spot if I had been pressured that way. In fact, I was in that position once. I pulled away, and then the people involved changed their strategy and I'm now fully frum for two and a half years now. He would have had me at Frumkeit being about rationalism and thought. I run at the first glimmer of pressure.

(4)
Golda,
May 7, 2007 3:42 PM

Still with the drugs?

It still strikes me with what ease Ms. Willis wrote about drugs, as though it was to be taken for granted that a "normal" secular American adult would use . . .

(3)
Anonymous,
May 7, 2007 12:14 PM

still powerful

all these years later still either lack enough clarity or can't take enough pain. not cerain which. need to review way#4 introduce self to self. while not enough clarity more than before and am able to take more pain.pray i merit and/or am granted more time.

(2)
Kasia,
May 7, 2007 12:03 PM

Universal Truth

I was captured by this story...it resonates with my feelings as I'm discovering how Judaism really is the truth to my soul. I can't wait to read part II.

(1)
Anonymous,
May 6, 2007 10:05 PM

Even after 30+ years

I sent it to one of my granddaughters... I feel there's no age gap...wonder what she will say!

I live in rural Montana where the Cholov Yisrael milk is difficult to obtain and very expensive. So I drink regular milk. What is your view on this?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Jewish law requires that there be rabbinic supervision during the milking process to ensure that the milk comes from a kosher animal. In the United States, many people rely on the Department of Agriculture's regulations and controls as sufficiently stringent to fulfill the rabbinic requirement for supervision.

Most of the major Kashrut organizations in the United States rely on this as well. You will therefore find many kosher products in America certified with a 'D' next to the kosher symbol. Such products – unless otherwise specified on the label – are not Cholov Yisrael and are assumed kosher based on the DOA's guarantee.

There are many, however, do not rely on this, and will eat only dairy products that are designated as Cholov Yisrael (literally, "Jewish milk"). This is particularly true in large Jewish communities, where Cholov Yisrael is widely available.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein wrote that under limited conditions, such as an institution which consumes a lot of milk and Cholov Yisrael is generally unavailable or especially expensive, American milk is acceptable, as the government supervision is adequate to prevent non-kosher ingredients from being added.

It should be added that the above only applies to milk itself, which is marketed as pure cow's milk. All other dairy products, such as cheeses and butter, may contain non-kosher ingredients and always require kosher certification. In addition, Rabbi Feinstein's ruling applies only in the United States, where government regulations are considered reliable. In other parts of the world, including Europe, Cholov Yisrael is a requirement.

There are additional esoteric reasons for being stringent regarding Cholov Yisrael, and because of this it is generally advisable to consume only Cholov Yisroel dairy foods.

In 1889, 800 Jews arrived in Buenos Aires, marking the birth of the modern Jewish community in Argentina. These immigrants were fleeing poverty and pogroms in Russia, and moved to Argentina because of its open door policy of immigration. By 1920, more than 150,000 Jews were living in Argentina. Juan Peron's rise to power in 1946 was an ominous sign, as he was a Nazi sympathizer with fascist leanings. Peron halted Jewish immigration to Argentina, introduced mandatory Catholic religious instruction in public schools, and allowed Argentina to become a haven for fleeing Nazis. (In 1960, Israeli agents abducted Adolf Eichmann from a Buenos Aires suburb.) Today, Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America with 250,000, though terror attacks have prompted many young people to emigrate. In 1992, the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 32 people. In 1994, the Jewish community headquarters in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 85 people. The perpetrators have never been apprehended.

Be aware of what situations and behaviors give you pleasure. When you feel excessively sad and cannot change your attitude, make a conscious effort to take some action that might alleviate your sadness.

If you anticipate feeling sad, prepare a list of things that might make you feel better. It could be talking to a specific enthusiastic individual, running, taking a walk in a quiet area, looking at pictures of family, listening to music, or reading inspiring words.

While our attitude is a major factor in sadness, lack of positive external situations and events play an important role in how we feel.

[If a criminal has been executed by hanging] his body may not remain suspended overnight ... because it is an insult to God (Deuteronomy 21:23).

Rashi explains that since man was created in the image of God, anything that disparages man is disparaging God as well.

Chilul Hashem, bringing disgrace to the Divine Name, is one of the greatest sins in the Torah. The opposite of chilul Hashem is kiddush Hashem, sanctifying the Divine Name. While this topic has several dimensions to it, there is a living kiddush Hashem which occurs when a Jew behaves in a manner that merits the respect and admiration of other people, who thereby respect the Torah of Israel.

What is chilul Hashem? One Talmudic author stated, "It is when I buy meat from the butcher and delay paying him" (Yoma 86a). To cause someone to say that a Torah scholar is anything less than scrupulous in meeting his obligations is to cause people to lose respect for the Torah.

Suppose someone offers us a business deal of questionable legality. Is the personal gain worth the possible dishonor that we bring not only upon ourselves, but on our nation? If our personal reputation is ours to handle in whatever way we please, shouldn't we handle the reputation of our nation and the God we represent with maximum care?

Jews have given so much, even their lives, for kiddush Hashem. Can we not forego a few dollars to avoid chilul Hashem?

Today I shall...

be scrupulous in all my transactions and relationships to avoid the possibility of bringing dishonor to my God and people.

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